Many cancer survivors smoke years after diagnosis
“We need to follow up with cancer survivors long after their diagnoses to see whether they are still smoking and offer appropriate counseling, interventions, and possible medications to help them quit,” said Lee Westmaas, PhD, director of tobacco research at the American Cancer Society (ACS) and lead author of the study. Roy Herbst, MD, PhD, chief of medical oncology at Yale University and chair of the AACR Tobacco and Cancer Subcommittee, who was not involved with the study, said in an interview that the findings illustrate the scope of the problem. “Smoking can cause new mutations among cancer survivors that can lead to secondary and additional primary cancers. …